Avoid "by the way" edits

Recently I've seen several instances where, in the course of making edit 
proposals for issues, people included other cleanup edits that weren't 
directly related to the issue. I am calling these "by-the-way" edits. 
The process issue these edits introduce is that, being not directly 
related to the issue being addressed, it will be harder for WG 
participants to notice and review these changes if they don't happen to 
be following that particular issue closely.

It is clear to me that the persons making the edits viewed them as 
innocuous and helpful improvements, but I think for some of them that 
others in the WG would consider some of them as changing meaning. What 
one person understands as a grammar improvement or clarification, 
another may perceive as a new meaning for the content.

It is natural that people will notice things as they work on issues, and 
desirable to fix those issues. To avoid introducing edits that aren't 
directly related to the issue being addressed, these things you notice 
"by-the-way" should be filed as separate issues or pull requests. We can 
then process those separately, and ensure there is enough review of 
them. Even if they seem editorial to you, if a change isn't clearly 
directly related to the issue you are addressing, please submit the edit 
proposal separately.

Even simple spelling errors fall into this category, they should be 
filed separately. It may make sense to file several spelling corrections 
together, but make sure you are correcting to US English. Grammatical 
edits may also be straightforward, but have a greater risk of 
unintentionally changing meaning, so it may be better to file them as 
separate proposals unless they're very simple. Clarifications have an 
even greater chance of changing meaning so should generally be filed 
individually.

Michael

Received on Friday, 29 September 2017 22:12:54 UTC